This year we decided to raise broilers. Cornish Cross to be exact. All the photos are at the end. (No photos of butchering)
Cornish live 8-10 weeks depending on how you care for them. They can live longer depending on the cross and genetics (and how you feed them). They are prone to weight issues and laziness bred /created for their excellent food to mass conversion.
We had a horse stall we don't use and a water trough with holes in it. The trough was convered into a brooder and the stall into a coop - lots and lots of chicken wire... We used pine shavings/chips from bombgards in the brooder and straw in the coop.
We got chicks April 9th. I picked the 15 chicks from a local store. One died the first night and a second the second night. No idea exactly cause of death. Could be got cold, was sick, or squished by another chick. The brooder was in the coop, a heat lamp 18 inches above it
Intiall we used quart size waterers and feeders. About week 2 they were up to 2 quart water and 7lb feeder. I changed their water every morning and every night. Food originally lasted 24 hours then slowly only 12. Their bedding changed every week.
At week 3, nearly week four most of the chickens were big enough to leave the brooder but not all. I wanted the heat lamp for the coop since our nights were still cold... So the big chickens had to handle the smaller space until the other ones got some more feathers.
Week 4 they all had their feathers so we moved them from brooder to the full coop space. The brooder was moved to block the door so I could sneak in and out without having to chance chickens. The heat lamp now hung anywhere from 3-4.5ft above the space. I dropped it to 3 feet on cold (40s) nights and off on warm (70F) nights
About week 5 I stopped feeding them 24/7, and only refilled the food in the mornings. I used a hanging feedter to force them to stand... the suckers would have laid down all the time if it wasn't for the feeder.
They had some personality, but most were docile fat chickens...
Week 8 (June 4th) we butchered. I grabbed the chicken by their foot, washed them a bit (Because they are dirty-dirty-dirty birds), and the gave them to DH to chop their heads off. It was quick. We scalded them in 150-160F water, then plucked feathers - which came off easy. I took of their feet, DH gutted them while I packaged. After the first bird, DH and I would basically hand a bird back and forth as each one ended up in a different stage in an odd assembly line between us two.
Issues we had - Scalding water got dirty so we had to dump, refill, and re-heat. Dirty birds are hard to clean... And our vacuum sealer wasn't the easiest.
Our largest bird was 7.0lbs dressed, smallest 6.0lbs dressed. The Cornish-Cross chicken meat at 8 weeks is tender and very good - it's not Game-y at all.
Photos below:
Before photos of coop:
After photo - Dupped Chicken-Knox.
Homemade Brooder:
Chicks at 3 weeks:
Chickens at 6 weeks:
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